There’s an apocryphal story supposedly by Plutarch (but more accurately by the writers of the character of Hans Gruber in the film Die Hard), that when Alexander (the Great) of Macedon saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
Alexander was 25 years old when he smashed the Persian armies and ruled the largest empire then known to the western world.
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As he was handed the microphone to address the near forty-thousand in the Nemzeti Atletikai Kozpont in Budapest on Sunday night, another 25-year-old world conqueror’s voice appeared to crack. When he appears in the mixed zone for a short while, his tone is hoarse and he emotionally talks about how Indians should never give up and just believe in themselves.
Neeraj Chopra had just completed the last major victory an athlete can hope to have. Minutes before, the Indian had thrown his javelin a distance of 88.17m. No one else in the 12 strong finals group can improve on that. Once this is confirmed, Chopra would press his head to the ground as he celebrated besting the best of the field at the Athletics World Championships.
His resume reads like something out of an athlete’s fever dream. Junior World Champion in 2016. Asian Champion in 2017. Commonwealth Games Champion in 2018. Asian Games champion in 2019. Olympic Champion in 2021. Diamond League winner in 2022. World champion in 2023.
At 25 years old, Chopra’s just completed one of the fastest speed runs of international athletics and certainly the quickest in his event. Only two javelin throwers - Jan Zelezny and Andreas Thorkildsen - have ever accomplished the triple of an Olympic, Continental and World title. Both were older too. Zelezny was 28 when he won his first world title to go with his first Olympic gold while Finland’s Thorkildsen was 27.
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Chopra will later laugh off that break in his voice. It turns out there are a couple of reasons for it. He’s of course just been screaming his lungs out each time he throws. There’s also the fact that he got into an ice bath soon after his first training session in Budapest. He could feel the strangeness in his throat soon after but Chopra says he didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
“If qualification had gone badly I didn’t want people to think that look at this guy, he’s already making excuses for failing,” he says.
It seems incredible Chopra thinks people would assume he was looking for excuses. For a country unaccustomed to world domination in track and field, Chopra’s made winning a habit over the last seven years of his international career.
When he thinks about it, it seems incredibly astounding.
“Every young athlete thinks they will win but I never had that clear vision of how I would do it. I remember what my thinking was in the world juniors and what my feeling was. It’s been a very long journey. When I started, my family had no background in sports. There have been a lot of ups and downs. I’ve had injuries and coaches change. When I see where I am now, it’s so much fun,” he says.
Yes, Chopra started with nothing. But now that he’s achieved everything, what other worlds are there to conquer? When you have already completed World athletics, how do you find freshness doing the same thing all over again?
It is a strange feeling he accepts. There was a raw desire that propelled the farmer’s son from the village of Khandra near Panipat towards greatness. It’s been sated now. “That same bhook (hunger) is not there now,” he admits
But there are certainly other challenges that remain. “Throwers don’t have a finish line,” he smiles.
It’s true that he’s matched his idol – Zelezny’s achievements. But Zelezny continued to be an elite athlete well into his late thirties. Chopra wants that for himself as well.
“I think now the main target is to play as long as possible and stay as fit as possible,” he says.
Longevity is important to him and not just because that’s what Zelezny achieved. These World Championships, Neeraj says, were perhaps tougher than the Olympics he won a couple of years back.
For one, he wasn’t a favourite back then.
“Johannes Vetter (the 2017 World champion who has the second best throw of all time) was the favourite. I had the Asian and Commonwealth Gold but that’s nothing at the world level. I had no pressure because I wasn’t expected to win. This time everyone expected me to win gold.”
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Not only was he expected to win gold, Chopra wasn’t nearly as fit as he was back in Tokyo. He had come to Budapest having only competed in two competitions this season after hurting his groin in the first. In the Hungarian capital he barely threw in practice, to avoid twinging that problematic muscle. He was also nowhere close to being as fast as he is known to be. Before every throw, Chopra would stretch out into a lunge. He would gingerly feel out his inner thigh. “When you are coming back from an injury, you are always thinking about it,” he would say.
Chopra’s got a new resolution for his next competition. “The main thing is to understand my body again. Maybe I push myself a lot more in competition. I sometimes feel I push myself more than I am capable of. That’s why I get injured,” he says.
Perhaps that doesn’t change anytime soon at the Worlds or at the Olympics.
“I was feeling something in my groin today but today I was thinking ‘this moment comes every two years, even if it breaks, I have to put in my full effort’. I think I need to change that mentality. I want to stay injury free but at the same time I have to find a way to push myself. I need to find out how to do that,” he says.
There will have to be a compromise. Chopra thinks he might not need such an all-or-nothing approach at a Diamond League. Having long made Indians used to seeing a world vanquishing hero, Chopra says this might bring some unsavoury results.
“Mentally in the Diamond league, I think I try too hard. Sometimes when I think I push myself too much, I feel like I’m getting a good performance but the actual level stays the same,” he says.
A new way to push himself
By this Chopra means his chase for the 90m throw. It’s importance has been tossed about a lot but Chopra, even after his win, admits it matters to him.
“That 90m question has still to be answered. I’m very consistent but my performance is staying the same. I’ve felt this in a lot of competitions. I keep thinking I’ll get 90m but it doesn’t happen. I need to find a different way to push mysel,” he says.
Chopra is confident he will get that mark eventually, but for that he feels he needs to change the way he approaches his second run of world domination. He says he wants to have more fun this time around.
“There are always people who tell me enjoy the moment (of competition). But I’ve never been able to do that. I’ve always been someone who takes a lot of pressure. I always feel chalo, tod fod macha do (let’s go and do some damage). And somewhere I think that’s not letting me throw as much as I should,” he says.
He explains by comparing the difference to how he performed in qualification where he threw a season’s best 88.77m in his first attempt compared to the final where he got a best of 88.17.
“If I speak of how I competed in qualification, I was mentally very relaxed. My technique was smooth, I was throwing at the right angle. That’s the sort of body language I want in the final also. I want to know how I can get the feeling in the final,” he says.
It’s hard for a guy who’s always pushed himself to the limit to try and put less of his body on the line. “I will of course try to do well in the Diamond league. But if I am trying something new, If I try to compete while I’m relaxed or try to find new ways to stay relaxed, that might help me. But I want to tell Indians, I know you expect that I always win but if I lose I want you to forgive me, because that is also important. This is something new I need to try,” he says.
Having accomplished everything there is to in his sport, Chopra says for his do-over, he will just try to enjoy himself. “At some level I’ve finished my journey. But I’m starting another one. This time I hope I can enjoy it. When we speak of medals, I have everything. Now I want to see how to enjoy sport and make it casual,” he says.
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